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20100924

Afrikaner women targetted in murders

Summary: Smallholder Christa du Toit shot dead at Uitzicht; Part-time SAPS canteen worker Jacoba Coetzee of Ermelo was axed to death next to her bible; Two smallholders at the Kameeldrift region near Pretoria – which has the highest farm-attack rates in the country – were arrested after shooting dead an unknown black man who had climbed into their window in the middle of the night;

September 23 2010 - Swazina Park, Uitzicht smallholdings – Pretoria . Afrikaner smallholder Christa Du Toit had just opened the electronic gates to her gardener when she was attacked, throttled and then shot dead with one shot to the head.

Beside her fiancee André du Plessis (54) Mrs Du Toit leaves two children, Amanda, 26 and Leon 31. “It was terrifying. One moment you were talking with her, you come back and she’s dead with a shot in her head,’ said the badly beaten Mrs Coetzee in an interview with Beeld newspaper.

Things were not as usual that morning: both gardeners had failed to show up for work. Shortly after Mr du Plessis had left, housekeeper Mrs Mambo suddenly saw that Mrs du Toit was being throttled by one of the gardeners. She rushed to the adjacent flat of Mrs Coetzee, warning that “Mrs Du Toit was being held hostage.”

The attacker came in, pushed a gun against Mrs Coetzee’s head and forced the two women into the bathroom, demanding money, before taking them to the main house. “When we walked into the hallway we saw Christa on the ground. He forced us to walk four times across her body. I asked him whether Christa was dead, and the man kicked her body and told us to shut up.’ Mrs Mambo then saw her chance, grabbed the gardener’s gun, throwing it into the air. As it fell to pieces on the ground the housekeeper rushed away to seek help from a neighbour. In the meantime Mrs Coetzee was being so brutally beaten by the murderer that she passed out. When she came to, he was gone.

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AIRWING, K9 UNITS SHOWED UP WITHIN MINUTES TO SEARCH THE AREA:

SAPS-members from the Hercules police station, the SAPS airwing and the Pretoria K9 unit showed up within minutes of the alarm and started searching the surrounding area. Mrs Coetzee was taken to the private Wesmed Bougainville Hospital in Hercules where she was treated free of charge, reports Beeld.

Mrs Mickey Coetzee, left photographed by Beeld after her ordeal: “I told Maurine to lock the door, and just as she did so a shot was fired right through the door. “

Warrant Officer Louis de Bruin released a picture of a man ‘who could assist them in their inquiry’, named as Nyasha Mabure (19). De Bruin said that while he ‘appeared to have been demanding money, he did not get any and nothing else was robbed either.’

Buks Viljoen, Beeld ERMELO - Sept 23 2010 - The Afrikaans Bible used by Jacoba ‘Jakkie’ Cornelia Coetzee, 62, that morning during Bible study was on her bedside table – and on the floor below lay a bloodied axe near her mutilated body, writes Buks Viljoen of Beeld newspaper. Only a cellphone appears to be missing…

Mrs Coetzee – who worked part-time with her husband at the Ermelo SAPS canteen - was cruelly hacked to death on Thursday afternoon. Her body lay next to the bed. Shocked family members and friends, including many police officials who were friends of the couple, gathered at the Coetzee family home on Thursday after the news of her murder broke.

Her husband Gert, 66, had arrived home at about 12:30 and discovered his wife's maimed body in the master bedroom. She had at least one hack wound to her face. Mrs Coetzee, a congregant of the Dutch Reformed church in the town, earlier that morning had still attended her weekly Bible study group with her friends. When she left there at 11.30, it was the last time she was seen alive. When her husband came home shortly before lunch, he found her lying in a pool of blood next to the bed in their bedroom. The axe lay near her body.

Gem of a human beingThe Coetzees are well-known in the town and news about her death sent shockwaves through the community. Among other things, they handled ticket sales at the entrance to the Ermelo agricultural show every year. The couple also worked part-time at the bar in the police canteen. Mrs Coetzee was seen at the canteen on Thursday morning taking stock after they had worked on Wednesday night. "She was a gem of a human being. The epitome of benevolence," Karla Prinsloo, spokeswoman for the Ermelo police, said on Thursday. The police's forensic experts were still busy investigating the scene for clues on Thursday night. Her daughter, Susan Losper, told Beeld through her tears how horrific the attack had been, shortly after she arrived at her parents' home on Thursday.She was too emotional to talk about it further.

According to w/o Prinsloo, by Thursday night the police “had found no sign of forced entry to the house”and the only thing that was missing was Mrs Coetzee's cellphone…

The SAPS may be contacted via Lt. Col. Leonie Joubert at telephone 017 811 3665 if anyone has further information about the murder.

Picture: Mrs Elize Olivier burst into tears outside the Pretoria magistrate ‘s court after a black magistrate postponed her husband’s and brother-in-law’s bail-applications to the weekend because police were still looking for an unknown Zimbabwean witness to the shooting death of an attacker on Sept 20 2010. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Ons-lewe-in-vrees-20100923

Mrs Olivier told Beeld photographer Wayne Coetzee that with the Olivier men in jail, the family ‘feared for their lives’ at the smallholding and that three unknown men had also been there just the previous night.

Working-class Afrikaners under siege at Kameeldrift:

Kameeldrift is a low-income working-class Afrikaner region -- yet it’s also is one of the most dangerous areas in South Africa - and many hundreds of smallholders have been attacked, raped, assaulted and murdered there over the past few years in an ongoing campaign of terror by well-organised, armed black gangs. These warlike living conditions have even gained fame abroad, with a journalist from Norway even travelling to the smallholdings to interview residents:

Gerhard Pretorius reported in Beeld newspaper that Kameeldrift smallholder Mrs Elize Olivier said her family was living in fear after her husband and his brother were arrested and put in a police cell until at least the weekend -- arrested for allegedly shooting dead an unknown black man who was busy breaking into a window of their homestead on Monday-night September 20 2010.

‘We live in fear there. Last night three more men were at our smallholding,’ said Mrs Olivier, tears streaming down her face when she heard that her husband Frederick Chrisjan and his brother Koos Petrus Olivier, would have to remain in the police cells until at least the weekend. Their bail application was postponed on Thursday ‘pending a statement from one witness’ the court ruled. The SAPS claimed in their submission to oppose the bail-application – which by law has to be heard within 48 hours of any arrest - that the smallholders had allegedly ‘dumped’ the dead farm-attacker’s body along the road.

However Fredrick Olivier’s lawyer JD Nel told magistrate Bhekui Ntshingila that he opposed postponement of the bail application: “The statement which the police is still trying to obtain is from an unknown Zimbabwean man. To find that man is going to be very difficult.’

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '